December 5, 2019
by VR Trakowski
Summary: Toby asks his sister for help.


**Happy December! I'm attempting the 31 Days of Ficmas prompts, which are apparently open to any fandom.**

**I do reserve the right to quit at any time. :P**

**Sorry this is late. The last few days have been a little stressful. The prompt for this one is "gingerbread".**

* * *

It wasn't snowing.

Toby dropped his head on his folded arms and sighed, staring out the window. The sky was a leaden gray, but nothing was falling, and the view out the window was dreary with bare trees and dead grass. _Figures._

At age fourteen it was uncool to get excited about Christmas, that was for little kids, but secretly Toby loved it. He loved the music, the presents, the tree, the lights...the whole lead-up to the main event. He loved shaking packages to guess the contents, and he loved to figure out the absolute _best_ present for somebody. He even loved going to the Christmas Eve service, though he pretended to hate it.

But this year, Christmas was gonna be _ruined._

_It's not fair._

Normally they had Christmas at home, he and his parents; sometimes his big sister managed to come home too. But this year Mom and Dad had decided that they were going to Uncle Ted's in Boston for the holiday, since Sarah wasn't coming.

And Toby _hated_ Uncle Ted's place. His cousins were all obnoxious, and no matter what they did Aunt Margie just laughed. Uncle Ted was a know-it-all who kept saying that Toby was rude. And they were always on some kind of weird diet, so the food always tasted awful.

_Last time the baby broke my iPad and they didn't even apologize. And I'll have to sleep in Patrick's room and he'll probably sleepwalk on me again._

Toby had pleaded to stay home by himself, making all kinds of promises about behaving - and he would have _kept_ them - but Mom and Dad said he was still too young. The prospect of spending a week in harassed misery made Toby want to crawl under his bed and never come out.

But there was one person who would understand. Toby checked the time, to make sure that neither of his parents would be home soon, and went to his bookshelf to pull out the object half-hidden behind some old _Excalibur_ comics.

The crystal ball, cool and heavy, fit perfectly in his palm - it always had, even though he'd been just seven years old when it had been given to him. Toby raised it to eye level and looked at his own upside-down image. "Sarah…"

Loving Christmas wasn't the only secret Toby kept.

* * *

It didn't take long. Sometimes Toby wondered what, exactly, his parents heard when Sarah talked to them, because what they thought about her and what she actually did were two very different things, even though she never seemed to lie. But none of it mattered right then, because she'd talked them into letting Toby come and stay with her for the holiday.

"You're not an adult yet so I still have to get their permission," she said apologetically as they waved goodbye to the taxi taking Mom and Dad to the airport. "Rules are rules."

"Don't care," Toby said, and gave her another fierce hug. All the stuff about being tough and cool weren't important when he was with his sister.

Sarah was more real than that stuff, anyway.

They did all the ordinary fun things first, just in case. Cocoa with peppermint marshmallows, turning on the gas log, watching a silly old holiday movie and pretending they were on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Not until they got a call saying the plane had landed safely in Boston did they bag up the presents, load the dishwasher, and put a leash on Arthur (Toby didn't know how Sarah settled things with the petsitter, and he didn't ask).

And then she pulled open the closet door in the front hall, and they stepped through into sunlight and stone walls.

Toby felt something in his middle expand, the way it always did when he got back to the Labyrinth. He'd only been a few times since he was a baby, but he remembered every one of them, even - in a fuzzy way - the first time.

He looked down to find himself dressed in silver-threaded velvet, black the way he liked it; Sarah was wearing a deep green this time, with golden gems in her hair. "Niiiiice," Toby said, grinning, and she grinned back.

"My wardrobe chose it. Okay, Arthur, here you go." She took off the whippet's leash, and Arthur stretched fore and aft and trotted off to investigate the nearest bush. "No teasing the fairies, remember."

A crowd of goblins was approaching with the usual grunts, shoves, and snorts. They bowed to their Queen, cheerful but respectful, and waved at Toby.

"Hey Trumbs, Orky, how's it going Neeb?" Toby knew them all, and exchanged a few friendly thumps before the goblins took the bag of gifts and hauled it off. "Hey, where's his Majesty?"

Toby wasn't afraid of Jareth, not at all, but he still felt a little awed by the Goblin King. The mysterious presence that had fascinated him as an infant was still mysterious even though technically he was Toby's brother-in-law now.

"Let's go find him." A small smile was playing on Sarah's lips, and Toby grinned and followed her through this section of the Labyrinth, Arthur trotting alongside. He didn't even care about missing all his favorite parts of Christmas - not if it meant hanging out with Sarah and Jareth. Visiting the Labyrinth was just icing on the cake.

They saw a few friends on the way, declining with thanks an invitation to tea with Mister and Missus Worm and picking up a delighted Ludo as escort. Sarah moved with ease among her subjects, and Toby was always happy to see her so at home - and a little wistful, too.

The twists and turns were different every time, so Toby didn't bother trying to figure out where they were. It wasn't until Sarah stopped to unlock a door with an ornate key that he realized they weren't going to the palace.

Sarah swung open the door and stepped back, waving Toby through ahead of her. He obeyed - and walked into winter.

It was snowing in the huge garden beyond the door, even though it was warm and sunny on the other side of the wall; the trees and bushes in the garden were half-hidden under white. Lights sparkled from branches everywhere. But what made the scene spectacular was the enormous, fanciful structures built to look like gingerbread.

Toby inhaled in delight - and the spicy taste in the air told him they really _were_ gingerbread.

Behind him, Sarah laughed. "Christmas in Candyland? Really? He's fourteen, not six," she said, but Toby paid no attention. He wandered out into the midst of the little buildings to admire them, so absorbed that he hardly noticed when Orky materialized to hand him a cloak and gloves.

The little village was amazing. Each one was frosted in elaborate detail; the windows seemed to be sheets of sugar, and the roofs were picked out in gumdrops and cookies. There were statues of snow - or sugar, Toby wasn't sure which - scattered around, ranging from ordinary snowgoblins to fantastic creatures he'd never even imagined, much less seen.

"Try one of the doors," said a voice, and Toby looked over his shoulder to see Jareth standing in the snow, wrapped in a white fur cape that should have looked ridiculous but didn't.

"Your Majesty," Toby said, as he always did, and Jareth gave him a pleased smile. Toby grinned back and carefully lifted the candy-cane latch on the nearest little cottage.

He almost had to duck under the lintel. The inside was all one room, lit by the diffused light coming through the windows, though there was a tiny hearth with a miniscule fire, and two benches drawn up to it. The fire should have burnt the house, of course, but Toby was used to magic by now. Green icing leaves and vines climbed the walls and decorated the beams overhead.

He came back out. Jareth was gone again, but Toby didn't worry about it; the Goblin King tended to disappear and reappear on a regular basis. Toby visited each of the little buildings, finding that they were all decorated inside with different patterns of icing, with different simple layouts. It made him feel warm and embarrassed to know that Jareth had created all this for him - probably at Sarah's request, but still.

Time is a funny thing, especially in the Labyrinth. Various friends showed up, Sir Didymus, Hoggle; Arthur was chasing Ambrosius, and vice versa; dusk fell and bonfires sprang up around the garden. There was cocoa and and hot little meat pies, and then Ludo was given the signal and started in on one of the houses, devouring the roof with great enthusiasm. Which of course meant that everyone else began to eat too.

It was _delicious._

Presents were exchanged - Toby was glad that goblin etiquette allowed the throwing of the gift at the giver's head in thanks, because some of the gifts were _gross_ \- and there was singing in several languages and even more keys.

At one point during the wild dancing, Toby saw Jareth and Sarah standing near one of the fires. The King had his cape and arms wrapped around his Queen, and was murmuring in her ear, and Toby caught her smile.

It warmed Toby all through, and he laughed and danced faster. Yes, the Labyrinth was the _best_ place to be.

They danced the night away.


End file.
